If there were a nerve center in the town of Port Authority, it would have been the multifunctional, rectangular, four-by-ten-meter room just off the admin dome’s central corridor. Dominated by a single sialon-topped table surrounded by mismatched plastic chairs, the conference room was contiguous to the communications center and radio room, next door to the armory, and across the hall from Shig’s and Yvette’s offices and the records and documents room.
It even had a window—though the sills tended to seep during heavy rains, and a slight tinge of green terrestrial mold now crept down the duraplast wall to mark the moisture’s path.
As a measure of the serious nature of the meeting, a pot of the precious coffee had been brewed by Millicent Graves, who ran the cafeteria. It steamed in the center of the table as Talina stared out the smudged window at the morning beyond.
Capella stood a couple of hand widths above the eastern horizon, rays of light beaming through the patchy clouds. Beyond the perimeter fence, the shuttle field still sported mud puddles from a heavy predawn downpour.
Pamlico Jones and his crew were already at work, sorting through shipping containers. To the north, empty containers had been stacked seven high until they resembled a drunken ziggurat. In the coming years, they would be filled with clay and the rare-earth elements that made Donovan so remarkably valuable.
The work would all be done on faith, of course. Faith that Turalon would make a successful return to Solar System, that The Corporation would eventually send another ship.
The last time, that had taken a full seven years.
How long would it be this time? Especially if Turalon vanished into inverted symmetry, never to return. Never to report Donovan’s fantastic riches to the scum-sucking Board of Directors.
Behind her at the table, Shig yawned audibly; as Talina turned, Yvette entered the room, a notepad under her arm, her coffee cup dangling by its handle where she’d hooked it with a finger.
The clutter of maps, containers, and chairs shoved against the walls didn’t so much as distract Yvette as she set her notepad down and dipped a cup of coffee from the steaming pot in the middle of the table.
“So, we’re pitched headfirst into another mess,” Yvette muttered as she parked her tall frame in a chair and rubbed her hatchet of a face. She fixed her green eyes on Tal and asked, “Couldn’t Trish have just shot them as burglars and saved us the shitstorm this is going to cause?”
“Trish is funny that way,” Talina said. “She might be the best marksman on Donovan, but she’s squeamish about blowing holes in people. I hope that doesn’t turn out to be a long-term character defect.”
“It just might,” Trish called as she burst through the door. “It’s a terrible failing I have. I like to know who I’m shooting, and for what reason.”
Talina watched her friend toe a chair out before flopping into it as if collapsing. Trish’s faintly freckled face had a drawn look, and her shoulder-length auburn hair was unkempt, in need of a wash. She flashed her gaze around the table, taking in Shig, Yvette, and Talina, where she stood before the window. Dark circles and puffy eyes added to her fatigued appearance.
“If they’d been anyone but Wirth’s slaves, I’d have slapped them in cuffs and sent them back.”
“They are indentured, not slaves,” Shig reminded, stabbing a finger into the middle of the contract copies that lay on the table before him. “Ten years? What were these people thinking?”
Talina stepped over and used her cup to dip out coffee before seating herself next to Shig. “They were thinking that spacing back to Solar System on Turalon was a death sentence.”
“And to escape the fire,” Trish added, “they sold their souls to Dan Wirth. Jumped into his frying pan, condemning themselves to be worked to death, crushed in mining accidents, and slowly starved.”
Yvette asked, “But Tosi’s in charge of them, right? How does that work?”
Trish rubbed her face, leaned forward, grabbed a cup, and scooped out coffee. She sniffed it, eyes closed, expression heavenly, then sipped. “God, I needed that. Okay. Here’s how it works: Tosi bet his holdings against a throw on the craps table. Lost, of course. Idiots never learn, and Tosi’s never been mistaken for bright.
“So Wirth gets the claim, but gives Tosi back fifty-one percent interest. Why? Because Wirth is no one’s fool. As long as Tosi’s claim is producing, Wirth wants Tosi working it, and not going out to find another one. And, it’s rich enough that Wirth wants to increase production. Just as Wirth is wondering how he can get more bodies into the mine, in walk four deserters from Turalon.”
“So what’s the problem?” Talina asked. “A lot of people work in mines. It’s what Donovan is all about.”
Trish arched a thin brow. “Not all of them are treated like slaves, locked in a shed, forced to sleep on pallets on the floor. Nor are they working fourteen-hour days. Raya’s just finishing up with the physical, but we’re talking underweight and malnourished.”
Trish smiled humorlessly, “And then there’s the matter of the missing man, Ngomo Suma. Their story is that a big chunk of rock crushed his leg. Tosi supposedly flew him in to Raya, but Ngomo never got here. Tosi told them that Ngomo was here, healing.”
“Where’s Tosi now?” Shig asked, thoughtful eyes on the contracts before him.
“I don’t know.” Trish stared down into her coffee. “Out at his claim? Confabbing with Wirth? Searching for his lost slaves? I thought I’d better give you an update before I brought him in.”
“What do these runaways want?” Yvette asked.
“They want their contracts and indenture declared null and void. They want to get away from Tosi and Wirth, but they’re scared to death that Wirth is going have his goons kill them before they can make their appeal.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Talina agreed. “He’s not going to take this lying down. He’d rather they ended up as corpses than freed of their contract obligations. First, he can’t allow that precedent to be established, and second, he won’t stand for the loss of face. It will make him look weak, and as I know Dan Wirth, he’d burn Port Authority to the ground before he’ll let that happen.”
“It would appear that our Mister Wirth has once again placed us in an intolerable position.” Shig touched his fingertips together, eyes thoughtful. “Indenture cannot be allowed to become slavery. Nor can the state be given the power to intervene in contracts entered into by consenting adults.”
Shig tapped the contracts again. “And, given the wording here, all parties freely admit to participating in these instruments without duress.”
“They were scared to death,” Trish countered. “And this is Wirth that we’re dealing with.”
“That is always the problem.” Yvette’s express betrayed distaste. “Just when people are on the verge of a workable system that guarantees liberty, along comes a psychopath to exploit it for his own gain.”
She glanced at Shig. “It is inevitable, you know. We have to intervene.”
“And start the process of authoritarianism?” Talina asked. “Loosen that first stone from the top of the hill, and it will gain momentum until government’s first and consuming purpose is the perpetuation of ever more government.”
Shig asked, “I am wondering if there is a way to handle with this without making a scene. Perhaps deal with Wirth privately, seek a way that allows us to remove . . .”
“Get out of my way!” came a cry from down the hallway, and within seconds, Dan Wirth—dressed in a black, tailored business suit—bustled through the door.
Talina’s first response, as always with Wirth, was to drop her hand to her pistol and flick the retaining strap off. She felt that frothing of rage the man always incited deep down inside her.
Her quetzal—for the most part quiet this morning—now took notice. She could feel her senses warming, an involuntary charge running through her muscles. Her vision sharpened, and her hearing became acute. Energy began to charge her muscles.
Well, at least when it came to Dan Wirth, she and the beast could agree on something.
“Where are my people? I want them. Now.” Wirth stormed up to the table, fists knuckle-down as he placed them on the sialon. He glanced from person to person, and fixed on Trish Monagan. “You did this, didn’t you? Connived and set this up?”
“Sorry, Dan. Caught them breaking and entering, destruction of personal property, trespass, and theft of a firearm.”
“Where?”
Trish inclined her head toward Talina. “At Officer Perez’s private residence. They slit their way through the plastic to gain entry. No way I could turn them over to you with those kind of charges standing against them.”
Wirth smiled, a curious light dancing behind his disconcertingly soft eyes. “Ah, yes. But what else could we expect? Very well. What are the fines?” He was reaching for his belt pouch as he spoke.
“No fines,” Shig said amiably. “This isn’t The Corporation. Nor are we Corporate officers who could impose a fine. Actually, until you forced us into a cash economy, we hadn’t thought in those terms. Rather, transgressions were accommodated by different forms of restitution, such as labor, a share of the crop, a percentage of mineral, or what have you.”
Wirth’s smile pulled his lips tight. “But of course.” He clapped his hands and, with a flourish, pulled out a chair. Seating himself, he leaned forward, expression intense. “So, good people of mine, let us bargain. Now, the fine and upstanding Officer Perez—having suffered the grievous personal injury of having her personal quarters disturbed, and her irreplaceable plastic violated—is in need of restitution. What can I do to be accommodating, given the heinous disregard shown for life and limb by these miscreants in my employ?”
Talina narrowed an eye, fully aware that Wirth never once made eye contact.
“I mean it,” he declared passionately. “I won’t have my people acting irresponsibly and soiling my good name. By all means, let us bring this to a satisfactory conclusion here. Now.”
“So far they have only been charged,” Yvette told him, voice deliberate. “They’ve asked for a hearing.”
“Bah,” Wirth waved it away. “They were caught red-handed, yes? They’re my people. I plead guilty on their behalf. In redress for the good Officer Perez’s personal injury”—he inclined his head her way—“I’ll make sure to have her wall fixed permanently and professionally. Not to mention the replacement of any articles which might have been misused in her house.”
Talina’s jaw muscles began to cramp as she ground her teeth. She felt her pulse settling into the slow and intense beat that presaged violence on her part. “They have a right to a hearing.”
As if he could sense the magnitude of her growing rage, Shig lifted a calming hand her direction. “Unlike The Corporation where bureaucrats make decisions based on ruthless authority and whatever interpretation of facts they deem sufficient for their causes, your people ask for a fair hearing. We will give it to them.”
“They’re my people, bound and contracted,” Wirth countered. “I withdraw their request.”
Shig lifted the contracts. “Nowhere in these documents does it say that they have surrendered their legal right to self-determination over to you. Only that they will labor for your sole benefit for ten years. In short, you have the right to utilize their labor, and to determine where they labor. Nothing more.”
Wirth’s smile turned radiant, his posture softening and the lady-killer dimples in his cheeks forming. It didn’t matter how many times Talina had seen it, the way Dan Wirth could just dial on that boyish, almost innocent charm, amazed her. It always took a moment to remember that it was an act, that beneath it the man remained a cold-blooded reptile.
“You’re right,” Wirth agreed. “As soon as you’ve charged them, arraigned them, whatever we do here, I’ll have one of my people drop by to pick them up. No reason you should have to keep them under lock and key until the hearing. I’ll deliver them to whatever place, I assume Inga’s, whenever you want them there.”
Yvette said, “Why bother waiting?” She glanced at Trish. “Have Two Spots put out a call on the radio. Set a meeting for eighteen hundred hours at Inga’s. Announce that we’ve been asked to make a decision on criminal charges against three Turalon crewmen, and at the same time, announce that they, in turn, want to challenge a contract of indenture against Dan Wirth.”
“What?” Wirth slapped a hand to the table, his charm vanished in an instant, the serpent beneath baring its fangs.
“It’s their right to challenge a contract,” Shig said mildly. “However, unless you did something fraudulent, or they did, I doubt they have a legal leg to stand on.” Shig paused. “You didn’t force them to sign under duress, did you?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Wirth asked in a cold whisper.
“Anything but,” Talina told him, leaning forward so that he had to meet her eyes this time. “But we’re holding that hearing. All charges will be heard, all matters brought to an impartial conclusion. You have my word.”
“Your word?” Wirth seemed to have gone unnaturally calm. And all the more dangerous for it.
“My word,” Talina repeated. “Just like you have my word that if anything happens to any one of those three people between now and six tonight, I will hold you personally responsible for murder. And I will kill you dead.”